AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/24 Report--

Great Wall Motors has completed its product planning for fuel cell passenger cars and plans to launch it as an independent brand with a high-end positioning, according to a source familiar with the matter, according to the Financial Associated Press on May 24. "Great Wall fuel cell passenger car brands and products are ready for launch in the second quarter of this year, but the epidemic factor is expected to be postponed to the end of the year," the person said. "

So far, Great Wall Motor has not officially responded to the above news.

It is understood that Great Wall Automobile is one of the well-known independent brand car companies in China. at present, Great Wall Automobile mainly takes the whole vehicle business as the core, comprehensively implements the clean and intelligent strategy, and distributes hydrogen energy and lithium electricity in the field of new energy. and set up honeycomb energy and unpotential energy two major technology companies. In terms of sub-brand layout, Great Wall already has five different sub-brands, namely, Harvard, WEY, Euler, Tank and Great Wall pickup, and Sharon Zhihang, a new independent automotive technology company incubated by Great Wall, covering products including SUV, cars and pick-up trucks. Among them, Harvard brand was founded in 2013 to position as "China's SUV global leader"; Wei Brand was established in 2016 to position "new generation smart cars"; Eula brand was founded in 2018 to position "global car brands that love women more"; Great Wall pickup truck positioning "pickup leader"; tank brand announced its official independence in 2021, positioning "tide play cross-country SUVs" In addition, Sharon Automobile is a new high-end automobile project planned by Great Wall at the end of 2020 and a new energy vehicle brand of "hydrogen and electric dual energy". It was officially launched at the Guangzhou Auto Show in 2021. The first model is an intelligent pure electric model that is located at more than 400000 yuan.

With the addition of many brands of Great Wall Motor in recent years, Great Wall Motor is no longer supported by a single sales source of Harvard. Throughout the past 2021, although the entire automobile industry was affected by chip shortage and epidemic situation, but Great Wall Motor still achieved year-on-year growth. Among the many brands of Great Wall, the one with better sales performance of high-end brands (including Wei Brand and tanks) is the tank brand. On the eve of the Shanghai Auto Show in April last year, Great Wall announced that it would operate the tank brand independently, while the Tank 300, which originally belonged to Wei Brand, was once popular since it was put on the market, and it was difficult to find a car after it was included in the tank brand. At present, tank brand products include tank 300 and tank 500, while tank 400, tank 700 and tank 800 will also be introduced to the market in the future, while Great Wall WEY, as the first high-end brand under Great Wall, its sales performance is not very satisfactory.

According to the data, the cumulative sales of Great Wall Motor for the whole year was 1280993, up 15.2% from the same period last year. According to the split of the sales of the sub-brands of Great Wall, the cumulative sales of the Harvard brand for the whole year was 770008, an increase of 2.64% over the same period last year, which was the main source of sales of Great Wall; the annual sales of the Euler brand was 135028, an increase of 140% over the same period last year, and it was the biggest increase under the Great Wall brand; the cumulative sales of the tank brand was 84588. However, WEY sales fell, with WEY sales down 25.65 per cent year-on-year to 58363 vehicles. The automobile industry is concerned that one of the main reasons for achieving year-on-year growth is the addition of new brands and new models of Great Wall Motors. For example, in April 2021, Great Wall Motors launched a new high-end off-road tank brand, and in November of the same year, Great Wall Motors also launched a new high-end brand salon, the first model of which was officially released and listed in a limited edition. In addition, the Harvard brand and the WEY brand launched a number of new models in 2021. Including Harvard's first love, Harvard Red Rabbit, Harvard Beast, WEY Mocha, WEY Macchiato and other models.

The latest figures show that Great Wall sold 53777 vehicles in April, down 41.4 per cent from a year earlier. As for the reasons for the decline in sales, Great Wall explained: "affected by the domestic epidemic, supply chain, logistics and other aspects are limited, production and sales have been affected, and Great Wall is actively communicating with all parties to try their best to solve the problem. It is expected to improve significantly in May. In terms of specific brands, the Harvard brand, as the key pillar of Great Wall sales, sold only 29125 vehicles in April, a decline of 47.06%, which indirectly led to a decline in Great Wall sales. Euler brand sales in April were 3088, down 58.69% from a year earlier, almost halving, making it the brand with the highest decline in April sales of Great Wall. For other brands, sales of Wei Brand fell 36.13% to 2293 vehicles in April compared with the same period last year. Although Wei Brand successively launched mocha, macchiato and latte series models, the overall sales performance was mediocre. In terms of tank brands, affected by many outbreaks, tank brand tank 300 models experienced a brief shutdown in April, but tank brand sales still showed an increasing trend in April, with tank brand sales of 6065 units in April, an increase of 10.27% compared with the same period last year.

For this year's annual sales target, Great Wall has set an annual sales target of 1.9 million vehicles for 2022. According to statistics, from January to April this year, the cumulative sales of Great Wall vehicles was 337277, down 21.8% from the same period last year. If calculated according to the annual sales target of 1.9 million set by Great Wall, Great Wall has achieved its annual sales target of 17.8% from January to April this year. It means Great Wall needs to meet its annual sales target of 82.2% in the remaining eight months. As for whether the new independent brand and the arrival of brand-new models can play a leading role in the sales of Great Wall, it will take more time to verify and the performance of the market to give the answer.

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